With the imminent release of Windows Vista to consumers this month, Linus Torvalds, the father of Linux, has claimed Microsoft's latest desktop effort is over-hyped and not a revolutionary advancement. "I don't actually think that something like Vista will change how people work that much," Torvalds told Computerworld. "I think it, to some degree, has been over-hyped as being something completely new and I don't actually think it is."

The "FREE" part mainly applies to developers and would-be developers. Free to modify the code. The catch is that you should offer the same freedoms to others, as was offered to you. That's the point of the GPL.

It does NOT necessarily mean free as in give away at no cost. Even though most distros are given away for free, companies like Xandros, RedHat, Novell, Linspire, etc charge money for their distros. (For support contracts to business clients, paid support for desktop users, or to pay for proprietary codecs like MP3, WMV, etc, etc).

Those companies clearly make money on GPL'ed solutions. (Which counters your claim suggesting that you can't make money).

And the GPL v3? Have you actually read the drafts? Or are you just basing things on hear-say?

The GPL v3 is mainly about preventing Tivo-lization. That is, delibrately using hardware (DRM) to prevent users of that device from modifying the Linux code as they wish.

GPL3 does NOT mean DRM-free content. Developers can add DRM the content they distribute. If you want DRM and don't agree with GPL, write your own code. Its your choice.